Student Motivation Saturday: Student Contracts

I'm linking up with Joanne for her Student Motivation Saturdays! I'll keep this short and sweet as the hubby and I are heading out this weekend to catch a couple of the Royal's games!

 

Again, I work with just a few students directly as a special education teacher. One thing I have done this year is used student contracts. I try to make them for things the students really need to work on (such as reading at home, organization etc.) and I try to make a huge deal about them.

I made up an example of one contract that was fulfilled. This student was super messy, even just a month into school. So one morning after listening to him talk about the cool trappers that everyone in his class had, we came up with a plan. I told him if he could keep his current 3 ring binder organized (we use a folder system in our school for each class and one for homework) along with a few occasional checks by adults he could earn a binder like he wanted. (I also know this student's home life and there isn't a lot of extra for fancy school supplies).

He agreed... so we drew up a contract. We talked about what it meant when we both signed. We even had another teacher as our witness so neither one of us could make false claims. He ate it up. A month later I took some of the best pictures of the school year when I gave the student the trapper he wanted. He was elated... and his new trapper has continued to be organized!

Here is what the contract looked like. Nothing fancy, we wrote it as we were talking (I just made another example to keep his name off.)